Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Dirty Little Secrets

Recently, a friend of mine said to me, "Maybe you could write about some of the stuff that you won't put in the blog."

I looked at him for a moment. And then we both laughed.

"You think there's anything I won't write about on my blog?"

But, I've realized in the last week, since I escaped drove home from my parents, that I really do have a lot of secrets.

For one thing, I will never admit to having any actual goals or dreams. Admitting that you have your heart or mind set on something, and then failing is just too humiliating. In fact, there are quite a few things that I do in secret in support of my goals that absolutely no one in my life knows about. No one.

I also have little routines that I've fallen into over the years that I keep secret. I think it's a byproduct of spending too much time alone while my husband is deployed.

And last but not least, I have the little things I do that I'll never admit to because they don't line up with my stated values.

For example, I claim not to care about appearances. I vow that I will grow old gracefully without fighting it. I swore that I'd be happy when I finally looked my age.

But then I aged at least ten years during 2005. That was a bad year for me. So I've started using wrinkle cream around my battered looking eyes.

It was my darkest little secret until I let my husband in on it.

Later that same day, my hip creaked as I stepped over a toy. I made that universal old woman sound of pain and sat down.

"You're getting old," my husband said.

"Tell me about it," I replied in good humor.

"But at least your eyes look good."

Deathly silence followed.

"Come here," I beckoned. "I'm going to slap the fucking shit out of you."